When you plan your vacation through Disney Vacation Club, there will often be options for excursions away from the resort. We decided to sign up (and pay for) two of them: Catamaran/Snorkeling and Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, the Pearl Harbor tour was canceled – not enough people signed up – so we chose to save that for our next visit. The catamaran tour was touted as a whale watching/harbor tour, ending with snorkeling and lunch. This tour was full! We were loaded onto a couple of vans and driven to the docks. Our driver took a slight detour to show us a ship used in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies – Blackbeard’s ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge! She allowed us to get out of the van and take a few pictures – pretty neat!

The weather was perfect: alternately overcast and brilliant sun so it didn’t get too hot. We cruised around (motor, not sail) and saw a sea turtle paddling along and then – Thar she

There’s Mama and Aulani is in the background!

blows! –we saw a humpback whale and her baby. The humpbacks use the waters around Hawaii as an obstetrics ward and nursery – so cool! We didn’t get too close and she was keeping her babe away from us. I wonder if they were the same whales we saw from our room – it was in the same area… As we headed toward the captain’s favorite snorkeling spot, we saw some spinner dolphins which looked about the size of large salmon. And we could sure tell how they got their names! They were leaping out of the water and spinning like a power drill until they dived back in. There were quite a few of them!

Look at the water color! Gorgeous! Oh – and my cutie husband, waving at me!

We anchored for snorkeling and received instructions – this was my first time and, not being much of a swimmer, I was a little nervous. It seemed pretty straight forward and I was fine until I put on my mask and stuck the snorkel in my mouth. Apparently, I’m claustrophobic. I paddled a little way from the boat and realized I was panicking. The deck hands were watching all of us and one noticed I was distressed, tossed a life ring to me, and dove in to help me get back to the boat. I knew in my head that I was perfectly safe – I had an inflated vest on, for pete’s sake, and knew it was hard to sink with flippers on, too – but my lizard brain was screaming, “YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!!!” So I got out, calmed down, dried off and took pictures. I think my husband felt bad that I couldn’t do it, but once I was out, I was just fine and

On our way back from our catamaran adventure!

I got a pretty cute picture of him in the water – wouldn’t have wanted to miss that! I actually could see the schools of fish from the deck – they were much larger than I expected – and very colorful. We had lunch on board as we sailed back to our dock. Despite my panic attack, it was wonderful and I would do it again. Well, not the panic attack, but you know what I mean!

Looking down from Diamondhead – the sparkling water, the lighthouse – beautiful!

On another day, we rented a car so we could drive around on the island. We went around to Diamond Head and took the trail up – I stopped one level below the top – Don went all the way. Despite the trail – and even stairs sometimes – it was pretty steep and tough for a wimp like me. The views were incredible, but it was pretty hot, away from the breezes on the beach!

As we drove around the island, we came across Kualoa Ranchwhich had been used for one of the Jurassic Park movie locations and was often the site for Hawaii 5-O scenes. We didn’t do a tour, but took a couple photos and hit the gift shop. Next time…

A fellow tourist took this shot of us near the summit.

Kualoa Ranch – home for some of the Jurassic Park movie scenes

We stopped for lunch at a place called Fat Boy’s in Kailua – yum! and then continued around to the North Shore. There was a surfing competition going on at one of the beaches so we watched for a while and picked up some very tiny shells. We drove on a bit further to a beach entrance a couple we met at Aulani told us about and came upon a wedding. It was heading toward sunset – and we saw some of the best sunsets ever on this trip – so we meandered down the beach to take some sunset shots. The light was incredible! It was like we were being bathed in gold dust. As it got dark, we headed back to Aulani with sand in our shoes, seashells in our pockets and a Papa John’s Pizza in the back seat. The perfect end to a perfect day!